we ♥ trunk and orderly

A nippy 5.8°C in Ballarat at 11.30 this morning but worth the cold and the drive to meet up with Anna and Joel of Trunk and Orderly- the Cottage is now stocking their fabulous cases! I love people who save machinery, are as skills-mad as me, are producing such gorgeous products and have a homemade pot bellied stove to keep their factory warm.

You can read the story  of T&O over at the D-Files . These beauties are handmade in Ballarat, the case board is 20-30 years old, as are most of the fittings, the lining we've chosen is a print created from old train tickets and we've got the cases in 3 sizes (lunch, kinder and weekender). If I wasn't so tired I would rave more about them but between my yawns and watery eyes I think it is time to heat up the wheat bag and crawl under the mountain of Welsh blankets on the bed.
Between earthquake and windy icy weather I'm worn out and sleepy.
Oh and look we have product in the Michi Girl online shop now!
The rest of the week is looking bitter weatherwise (just how I like it!) so remember we have lots of lovely angora gloves and Lisa B socks for you to snuggle into. Really need to do something about the lack of Winter clothing  and the dearth of blanket quilts.......

shaking

An exciting evening. An earthquake that seemed to go for quite awhile. Jethro fine about the shaking, he just sat and looked at me curiously then went down to check all was OK and to bring a pair of short burgundy gloves and then a pair of long red gloves. He'd be good in an emergency obviously. Seems there is a bit of Rin Tin Tin in him.
A bare couple of hours in the studio today, spliced in between wholesale customer meetings, a photo shoot of products for a local newspaper and a bit of dyeing. I really will have to have a very intense burst of dyeing soon as I'm finding the glove boxes to be running low again. I barely seem to catch up before I have to start all over again.
I seem to have a lot of appointments this week, Ballarat tomorrow, something exciting to show you soon! And Jethro has just brought me another pair of gloves... fluoro yellow... he's so kind... I really shouldn't encourage him...
I received some lovely emails from people about yesterday's post- thank you. I'm not really down on Pinterest and time on the internet, just more curious and contemplative about the world they create. I don't quite know how people fit them into their days, I seem to run out of time everyday just getting through the basics. Time is a luxury.
I am mourning the impending demise of broadsheet newspapers and editorial independence. I love reading my news printed on paper. I'm sorry but I can be a Luddite about these things or should I say an 'anti-Luddite'- don't smash those machines, keep them running! I know, I am very old-fashioned.

thinking

I'm flat as a tack today. It's probably the tail end of the stupid cold, a bit feverish and  a bad night's sleep can take it out of one. There are gloves to be dyed and pressed today, lots of paperwork to read for a meeting, so I think an at-home day is needed, mind you half the day is gone already.
I've been thinking a lot lately about 'stuff', nothing particularly earth shattering, just contemplating life in general, then along came this post by Rohan, 'happiness vs content' which was exactly what I was pondering. I've been thinking of late how the whole blogverse could really get one down, too many aspirational photos of beautiful people/children/houses/holidays/possessions/clothes/food. I was wondering whether there are crowds of people out there feeling they could never achieve the edited 'happiness' they see online and the cynic that I am wondered about façades and anti-depressant medication. I steer clear of places like Pinterest and would much rather stick an occasional photo on the wall near my desk or having enjoyed an image for a little while, file it in my memory and move on.
I have always been a bit wary of 'happiness', I think it is fleeting and the push of societal pressure to be happy just freaks me out, the rise of online 'happiness projects' seems weird and vaguely creepy to me. Not every day is a happy day, some days are flat and grey and exhausting but that's ok, that's life, it goes up, it comes down. People often say to me how lucky I am to spend my days making stuff, how they wish they could do it. I always have a chuckle inside. This is my job and it is my life, it is sometimes fun and exciting but often the pressure (physical, mental , financial) is exhausting beyond belief. And I am not going to put a smiley face on and pretend I am not worn down by it all. The other thing people always say to me is that they like that I am honest in my blog, that I am never 'jolly hockey-sticks' and fake-ly cheery.
Which all leads to content. I don't live my life with a high 'happiness' quota but the last few weeks' thinking
made me decide I am 'content' and to me that is no bad thing. I don't have a partner, a child, own property, my holidays are pretty basic, if I was to separate my work possessions (mountains of stuff) from my personal then I don't actually own much (my home does appear quite full though). Content is the simple things in life. Funnily enough when I think about ways to describe content they are often about extremes or the little things... breathing in the steam of a mug of tea on a cold cold morning, feeling your toes thaw out after a winter walk, the smell and crack of a fresh made loaf of bread, the small pride in making something well... perhaps because Winter is a time to slow down, to nest and burrow oneself away, to find a quiet place deep in one's self.
There is nothing wrong with being content. There has been  quite a lot of work looking at how we really need to slow down and find quiet times in our day. That without these quiet times we are actually less creative and innovative. It takes a lot to switch off, to stop 'relaxing' with a bit of blogsurfing, to learn to sit quietly for a minute or two, to not wake up at 4 in the morning with our minds buzzing. Sometimes we need to be a turtle, slow and steady and carrying our 'home' with us, not our physical home but our content inner home, not racing about creating towering edifices but spending time on the simple things.

overwhelmed

Saturday. Again. Different this week as I actually have internet connection.
Weird ol' week this week, kind of mixed up and a bit nothing, if you know what I mean. A disconcerting week, perhaps a 'waiting week', an off-track week, a not a lot achieved week. I think maybe my working patterns are changing and I feel a bit out of kilter, it's been like this for a bit now and I wish I could find some steadiness in my days.
On the studio front I cut up hides and sides of leather to make new granny purses- fluoro grannies, lustre grannies, bi-colour grannies, granny takes a trip grannies. Really they are ridiculously bright and the fluoro ones match our satchels. Hopefully in-store next week and there is going to have to be a really big move around to find space for them.

I only made two new Welsh blanket cushions yesterday. I know, it's got totally out of hand. We've had people in this week looking at cushions who have ended up leaving in confusion because of the choice (mind you they always put their names down to be notified when new ones come in- what, they want to be even more confused?!) and I am starting to think we should hide half of them out the back. Overwhelmed for choice it appears. 

On the matter of choice, the two boxes of Lisa B socks have arrived. Along with a repeat of spot calf, spot OTK, Argyle calf, diamond OTK we now have two new styles, fairisle and patch and there are new colourways too. Yep, even more to confound your brains with.

Which Welsh blanket cushion will go with my socks and should I match my gloves to my socks or to my cushion?? And will they go with my satchel? And which colour combo should I get in the  mix'n'match granny purses?

Ha.

I better go press up some short charcoal gloves before the Saturday shopgirl shift starts.

the great equalizer

No product to show for today, just a lot of pencil sharpenings, bits of kraft paper and some swearing. Playing with pattern blocks, master blocks, adapted blocks, doing things like 'equalizing shoulders', losing darts, creating ease. As I said, no product, perhaps it will lead to product.... or hair tearing.
I am feeling flat this evening, funny how that can creep up on you. I've just been through the glove boxes trying to get an order together to discover how low we are on some colours/lengths. How did that happen? So now I have 'elephant' in the washing machine and 'charcoal' soaking in the copper. The kitchen is piled high with boxes and bags of gloves , there is definitely no room to swing a cat although Jethro like to pretend he is scaling the south face of the Himalayas by clambering up and over them.
I've discovered that I can easily clean the kitchen ceiling if I wait for the copper to reach a nice boil and fill the kitchen and laundry with steam. I've been thinking it needed a re-paint but it's amazing what a wipe over can do. Cleaning, so many other better ways to fill your day. I do have plans to get out the drill out soon, I'm thinking the sliding door between the kitchen and laundry might make a good moving pegboard. Sometimes a bit of home reno is as good as a holiday.

trying

No studio yesterday. I slept in a fraction (and again this morning, my bed is just so nice and snugly) and then drove up country to get the rest of my glove order. A few op shops on the way, no great hauls, and I seem to have developed a love of photographing things I don't buy, Hipstamatic and op shops seem to go together so well.
The first box of our second order of Lisa B socks has arrived and fingers crossed the second lot will arrive today. There is a full range of calf length spot socks in and the lovely Argyle ones too and in this box was the knee high fair-isle design. There should be OTK diamonds and spots and the new colour block style in today's delivery. I'll snap a photo later to show you their glorious sockiness!
Other news? Not much. Trying to stop procrastinating and trim and tag a couple of boxes of gloves. Trying to remember to take a kilo of lavender and a technical book to the studio. Trying to find a picture of a seat cushion to send to the upholsterers for a job I'm advising on. Trying to leave the house. Very very trying.

a tuesday a bit like a monday

A day in the studio, the first full day in... oh, I don't know how long! I thought perhaps I needed to do something new, dust off Monster (the walking foot machine, brother to the Beast the walking foot binding machine), chop into some leather, make a new purse or two. I floated a bit, couldn't settle totally, got annoyed at the dust and mess. So out came the vacuum, which actually always sits in the middle of the floor taunting and tripping me up, lugged cardboard boxes to the bin and I hunted out blankets read for quilt making.

The studio was freezing and my fingertips got clumsy from the cold, meeting my fellow studio dwellers in the hall everyone was murmuring about the cold, jealous of my beanie. For the first time this Winter I switched the heater on and burnt the dust off. It's always a bit of a rude shock when the residual warmth of Summer finally leaves the building. So this week I need to get my head around being back in the studio, focusing on what needs to be done (like Winter clothing), I'm late as usual but once I get motivated I'll speed up. 

I've got gloves in the washing machine that need to go in the dryer, gloves in the sink that need to go in the dye pot, gloves on that table that need clipping and tagging, gloves up country that need to be picked up, gloves to go out, gloves, gloves, gloves......